


Take Up Space

by Nyxierose



Category: Jessica Jones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Moving In Together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-29
Updated: 2015-11-29
Packaged: 2018-05-03 22:21:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5309198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nyxierose/pseuds/Nyxierose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For most people, moving in with their partner is a conscious choice. For Jessica, it's an accident, and she's none too thrilled.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Take Up Space

**Author's Note:**

> First fic for this fandom. Wheee!!
> 
> Also posted on Tumblr @electricbluebutterflies.

"Where’s my shirt?” she murmurs on a too-fucking-cold Thursday morning, half tangled up with her partner and half falling off the mattress. She wants to stay here forever, but she has a case of the sort that involves moving around in daylight and it’s easier if she just goes there from here and-

“Middle drawer,” Luke replies, not missing a beat.

Wait… drawer? Did she really hear that correctly?

For a heartbeat, Jessica’s brain goes into something loosely resembling panic. She is not this sort of person, thank you very much. The fact that she spends a lot of nights curled up in the same person’s arms is weird enough, but conscious domesticity? Not her angle. At all. She felt nauseous a few months ago when she realized it would be practical to keep a damn toothbrush here, and now she has a drawer? What the fuck?

She doesn’t say this, of course. She’s trying to be less of a bitch, and a good part of that effort is not saying _everything_  that crosses her mind. No, she keeps quiet for once and slowly untangles herself and wanders over and sure enough, a decent portion of her wardrobe has migrated into her not-boyfriend’s apartment. Including, somehow, the one outfit that might make her acceptably convincing for a particular appointment in about an hour.

Jesus, she can’t even define her relationship but apparently she lives here now. What even is her life?

She’s on edge for most of the day - suppresses it as absolutely necessary, because actively letting on that she’s a nervous wreck doesn’t mesh well with recreational cat burglary or a surprisingly convincing turn as a pharmaceutical rep (and for the record, those two projects are unrelated), but it’s constantly in the back of her mind. How the hell did this even happen? It’s been a bit over a year since the really weird shit happened, and around six months since she turned up at his door with her tail between her legs and wearing red lace lingerie and not much else and not even caring how much of a cliché she looked. At the time, it was purely physical. She needed an outlet, and apparently he needed the same. But somewhere along the line, things started to shift, and now… now she’s not sure  _what_  they are, let alone how she feels about it.

Partner is good, she decides. Partner has appropriate connotations. Partner implies their ridiculously satisfying sex life, definitely, but also covers the weird nights when her brain turns traitor and he waits it out with her. Maybe that was the turning point, the first night she showed up and just wanted to be held, the night he kissed her and she pushed him away and he took a fuckin’ hint and got appropriately worried. Maybe  _that_  was the night that put them on this road towards wherever the hell they are now. At the very least, it’s a better turning point than anything else she can think of.

Whatever. It’s not like he’s hung up about it or anything, or at least he didn’t sound like it earlier. Luke’s an easy enough person to decode, and if he were less than thrilled with the current state of their arrangement, she trusts him enough to think he would’ve said something. Never been a problem before with him, and while her track record with relationships is on the pretty little line between nonexistent and disastrous, this is a definite improvement.

She’s still not thrilled, but she can get over herself. Eventually.

Out of habit, she avoids the apartment until late, until she knows he’ll be back. She lets herself in - another sign of domesticity, she has a key and she actually fuckin’ uses it - and collapses on the bed because today has been exhausting on  _several_  levels and waits for the elephant to make itself visible again because it’s just a matter of time. They’re gonna have The Talk, and there’s no way that ends well for her.

“You okay?” he asks, sitting down next to her. Not a good thing he’s giving her space, but not a notably _weird_  thing either.

“What the hell are we?” she mutters, not even bothering to look at him.

“What’s this about, Jess?” Worried now. The absolute last thing she needs, because worried leads to making her deal with her shit leads to her being even more determined to  _not_  deal with it. Fantastic.

“I have a drawer.” She says it like a curse, and in some ways she’s pretty sure it is.

“Yeah. You’re also here more than you’re not and leave your stuff everywhere.”

Valid point, but she’s still stubborn as hell. “I don’t leave things  _everywhere_.” She turns her head just in time to see him dramatically roll his eyes. “Okay, yeah, I’m not a neat freak like you but-”

“I’m not asking you to marry me or anything. I’m just trying to make this situation work.”

“I don’t know how to  _be_  with someone,” she sighs. “I guess I thought… after all the bullshit… I didn’t know this was even possible, okay?”

She wants to cry. She doesn’t, because she still has some level of self control and because she is  _definitely_ not that sort of person, but she wants to. God, this is overwhelming.

“We don’t have to be anything official,” Luke says, shifting and loosely pulling her into him. “I get it, you don’t want that.”

“I don’t do domestic. Ever.”

“I’m not asking you to. I’m not asking you to do anything other than let yourself take up space here.”

She can live with that, she decides. She can live with a little bit of claimed space alongside someone who’s seen the absolute worst of her and still wants her there. And if she suddenly has aesthetic preferences the next time furniture needs to be replaced… so be it.


End file.
